The Science of Figs

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(C)Copyright 2010, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


I'd seen the cookies long before I'd ever seen a fig or heard of a Newton.

But everyone knew the dance, including the "tricky part".

The Center

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(C)Copyright 2010, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Technically, since the universe expands infinitely in every direction, then no matter when I'm standing I am the Center of the Universe.

By the power of grade school, I am the center!

Farmville Funnies #4: Do You Know What I Really Need?

By the way, this is true. It's a screenshot, modified only to add text.
Also true is that I'm too obsessed with Farmville.

Cones

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(C)Copyright 2010, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


I wonder which conic section of space they're from.




The background color looked darker on the PC I composed this on. Darker than navy blue. Oh, well. Maybe I'll adjust it later this week.

Be Cos

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(C)Copyright 2010, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


And, of course, TanG went to the Moon.





Sorry, this is a day late on this site, so I left all the palindrome date stuff off. It's on the CG site.

Splitting the Difference

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(C)Copyright 2010, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Or "Wuck Season", if you're Elmer Fudd with an elephant gun.

Lots of people talk about compromising, meeting in the middle and splitting the difference.
But there's a problem when the options are discrete values such as "yes" or "no".


Fun with dates: Today is 2010-0120.
I'm just sayin' ...

Chutes & Co-Incidennce

My local newspaper runs the syndicated comic Pearls Before Swine. every Sunday. (It might run it daily, but I only get the paper on Sunday.) I don't always glance down to it, but I did catch this past Sunday's strip.

Given the lead time for newspapers, Stephen Pastis didn't copy from me, and I can attest to the fact that I know no one who works for him. We can call it a co-incidence that in the same week that I made references to Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders in one strip, references to those same two games appeared in his comic.

I guess that makes me the Pearls and him the swine.

Pythagorean Doubles

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Bet you were expecting a lame tennis joke when you saw the title ... hey, waitaminute ....

Math and abstract art can go together sometime.
Don't be surprised if a portion of this gets used for a night sky in a future strip.
Or for celestrial railroad tracks.

If any further explanation is needed, this is a graph of all (x, y) values such that x and y are 2/3 of a Pythagorean Triple.

Farmville Funnies #3

A bonus comic:



Farmville is a trademark of Zynga, Inc.
Since I didn't do the artwork, it's not going on the CG site as an "official" comic. It will probably show up on my Facebook page instead.

Deltoids

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


The instructor is big on cardio fitness.

A deltoid is a hypocycloid of three cusps.
A hypocycloid is a special kind of hypotrochoid.
A hypotrochoid is a curve traced by ... ah, hell, I'm switching to being a Liberal Arts major.
Or a poet. No one expects anything from a poet.

Candy Land

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Coming soon: Chutes and Ladders: the Integrals & Slopes edition

I suppose I should provide a link for anyone not aware of what Penrose tiling is.
Basically, the (unaltered) pattern is composed entirely of two specific figures -- kites and darts -- and named after mathematician Sir Roger Penrose. They're known for their beauty and the fact that they are not symmetrical even though they look like they should be.

Euler's Debate

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


It's correct. Why? Because I said so. It's just obvious.
Blame Euler for the rest.

56 is 75

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.

Thank you. Thank you very much.
Happy birthday to the King.
For those of you who thought that the title had something to do with base 8 or base 9, well, you were way, ahem, off-base.

Related reading: Agent 56 Lives!.

Volume of a Pizza

I've seen this joke on the Internet a few times, but this is my favorite illustration of it, so far.

 

created by Jay Fallon, posted on Jay's posterous blog.

 

And a nod to MathFail.com, for bringing it to my attention.

Getting Supplies

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Any resemblance to any persons living or deceased or at any state in-between is purely co-incidental.

And thanks to Tracy for getting me what I need -- a laugh to take my mind off things.



Sorry. This should've been up hours ago. Oops.

A Bit Cheery

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


Take the "0"s in the Bit Bowl. You have my word on it.

Farmville Funnies #2

A bonus comic:



Farmville is a trademark of Zynga, Inc.
Since I didn't do the artwork, it's not going on the CG site as an "official" comic. It will probably show up on my Facebook page instead.

The Top 10 (x, why?) Comics of 2009

The Top 10 Comics of 2009
by number of hits on the comicgensis.com site, as measured by Google Analytics.

This doesn't account for the number of times that people landed on the main page and read whatever was there. Also, it doesn't account for the fact that Comic Genesis had its own counting service, which was discontinued, so I didn't start the GA account until after 2009 had already begun.

One again, there were a number of 2008 strips that were clicked on in 2009, mostly from the start of the run, telling me that people went back to the beginning, read a bunch and, sadly, gave up. Hopefully, they decided just to read the newer comics. Maybe I've aged well.


1. Electron Day, Part 2 (Go figure. I can't.)
2. Combining Like Terms (More like it.)
3. Circle in the Square (Which became a crossover comic.)
4. Plotting (A personal favorite)
5. Speed Limit II
6. Through a Window Darkly, Part IV (Yes, Part IV!)
7. Through a Window Darkly, Part III
8. But Wait, There's More! (More Ronco than Billy Mays)
9. Pizza Day
10. Guess and Check

Pizza Day also has the honor of being the comic with the most Diggs with 12. A low number to be sure, but way ahead of second place, which has 4.

Happy New Year 2010

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(C)Copyright 2009, C. Burke. All rights reserved.


After ten years of writing one-double-nine and ten years of writing two-double-zero, writing two-oh-one-oh may prove challenging for a few days.

Welcome to The Year We Make Contact.

Happy New Year!